


The Ransom

by ninhursag



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Child Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Preseries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-22
Updated: 2010-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-06 13:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/8893.html?thread=27060925#t27060925">this</a> prompt. Boiled down to: Pirate!Gaila kidnaps teenage!Kirk for ransom. Hijinks ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ransom

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fic](http://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/tag/fic), [star trek](http://ninhursag.dreamwidth.org/tag/star+trek)  
  
---|---  
  
 

Title: The Ransom  
Rating: R  
Pairing: Kirk/Gaila  
Summary: From [this](http://community.livejournal.com/st_xi_kink/8893.html?thread=27060925#t27060925) prompt. Boiled down to: Pirate!Gaila kidnaps teenage!Kirk for ransom. Hijinks ensue.   
Warnings: Discussion of child abuse and slavery. Not explicit.

 

Gaila's first mission for the Syndicate was supposed to be a milk run, as much as anything could be in the Sol System, right under the Federation's nose. Snatch the fancy officer's son on his school trip to the moon, hustle him onto her ship and hit the rendezvous point. Then she got a stack of credits and the recognition she deserved to become a full fledged Syndicate member, not some fleshpot dancer.

It went well too, the boy was easy to grab. He hung back from the other Terran children, and out of range of the adults. No one seemed to look back for him or check that he was there. The kid was too thin, with a sullen teenage glare that snapped into a thousand year blank stare when he thought no one was looking. He didn't even try to raise a fuss when he felt the phaser jabbing against his spine. It was like something out of a textbook, right up until they were on board her ship.

Gaila didn't know what she'd been expecting in the son of a Federation officer. It wasn't this boy she had at phaser point in the cargo bay of her ship. He didn't act afraid, not even when he was looking down the business end of a Syndicate phaser. That just made him smile at her. "Gonna shoot me?" he said, low pitched voice, like he was flirting with her. "I'm pretty sure they don't pay ransoms for dead people. They just come after the killers."

"They pay for wounded ones," she says and smiles right back, phaser pointed at his leg. "You can just squeal in pain until I get my credits for all I care."

He meets her eyes head on. His are blue and wide. His chin is tilted up in a way she's pretty sure translates to stubborn in human. Great. She had to pick the feisty one. If her luck was sour enough she might even have to shoot him after all.

Then he speaks and throws out all her expectations again. "Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, lady," he says and he's smiling like, no, actually it's the best thing in the world. "But my mom actually kind of hates the sight of me, she hasn't seen me in, like, a year. If she even bothers to call back to Earth and find out I've been kidnapped by Orion pirates she'll probably cheer."

"We'll see." She almost rolls her eyes at him, wanting to figure it for a human lie, but then again, he's taking so much vicious pleasure in the words. She doesn't think anyone could say that in a tone like that unless they believed it was true. Which doesn't mean it is-- Terran humans adore their young, it says so in all the books.

"Yeah," the boy says and looks right passed her again. Maybe he hasn't read the books? "You will. Actually, you should probably shoot me or let me go, save yourself the energy."

That makes her laugh out of sheer ridiculousness. "Right," she says. "How about instead, you quit talking, spare _yourself_ some pain and put these on." She tosses a pair of electronic cuffs at him with her free hand. "I'll be nice and let you cuff your hands in front."

He smirks. "Kinky," he says. "I like--" he pauses. Frowns at her. "I was gonna say I dig older women, but you're not even older than me, are you?"

She glares at him. "I'm not a pampered Terran brat like you. Put on the cuffs or I'll stun you unconscious and do it myself."

"No," he says, and lets the cuffs drop to the floor. She half expects him to lunge at her, but he doesn't, just stands there looking at her with his hands empty and open in front of him. Like he's playing at harmless. That actually makes her worry. No one she's ever met pretends to be less of a threat than they are. He just smiles and takes a step back. He's surprisingly nice to look at when he smiles. "Look, how about I tell you why I let you kidnap me?" he asks.

"Let me?" she spits. "You little--"

He just shakes his head, speaking faster now, like he's trying to get the words out before she completely loses her temper. "I figured I'd take the chance, okay? I'm not kidding, my mom's not going to pay a ransom for me, not unless we do this just right and embarrass her into it. Or better yet, embarrass her bosses, they're the ones with the real credits and they're actually on Earth."

She glares at him. "We?" she says. "Is there any way in which you could possibly be serious?"

For some reason, that makes him smile. It's different from his earlier smirks and taunts. Almost sunny, like daylight breaking through the walls of her sister's harem. "I know this sounds crazy, but I have a good feeling about you. And if we play this my way? You're going to make a lot more off me than some lame ass ransom or selling me off or whatever."

She frowns, but her phaser hand has lowered, resting at her side without her quite realizing it. There's something compelling about his smile. It's probably nefarious. "Yes and of course I have every reason to put my faith in you to cooperate in your own kidnapping," she mutters.

He looks her dead in the eye and his smile fades. "Fine, you want my motivation?" he says, a little too loudly. Then he starts to unfasten his school jacket and the shirt underneath.

She blinks. "This is motivation? Sexual recreation is fun and all, but I don't have your Terran human attachment to--" she stops short, right in the middle of the sentence when she gets a look at his pale, bare skin. The scarring is astonishing, like something to be expected in a very experienced fighter... or an uncooperative harem dancer who needs to be taught. And taught again. She swallows hard. "Terran parents value their offspring," she whispers. She is absolutely sure she read the book correctly.

The boy smiles thinly. "I'm not his offspring," he says. "He's just the guy that's fucking my mom." His eyes are too bright, wet, but his voice doesn't waver. "You probably already know this, but I'm Jim. Jim Kirk. What's your name?"

"Gaila," she says without really thinking about why she's giving that information away.

"Gaila who?" he asks, carefully, like he understands what he's asking. She shakes her head and he nods. "Orion slaves don't have clan names, right?"

She glares at him. "I'm not a slave anymore. I pull this off and I'm going to be Synd--" she stops herself before it gets too far. He takes a step forward and for reasons she doesn't understand, she doesn't raise her phaser.

"Gaila," he says, slow and easy, like he's coaxing. "We are going to pull this off." Then he's right there, so close she can feel him breathing. He smells good, a little sweaty, like he might have been afraid, but young and clean underneath. "Don't even worry about it, okay?"

There's absolutely no reason in the world to trust him, but when he offers her his hand she takes it and shakes on it, human style. At least that's one thing she read in her book that turned out to be right.

 

Jim's plan doesn't end up being all that different from Gaila's in the basic outline. It's only the people he wants to notify that changes. "Not my mom," he says as he leans over her comm unit. "Fuck, not my stepdad. There's this one guy-- Starfleet, he was a buddy of my dad's, he still comms on my birthday." He makes a face. "Oh, and we'll definitely wanna notify the school. Fuckers probably think I'm playing hooky."

That and the fact that for some reason she's still not clear on, she hasn't turned him over to the Syndicate yet.

Jim just smirks at her when she mentions it. "You just like me," he says.

"I just don't want to share the ransom with them," she growls, even though that's crazy talk. She'll have to. No one double crosses them, not and walks away.

When they're finally done sending out the list of ransom demands, Jim yawns heavily, rubs his eyes, and gives her a look from under his lashes. It's a pretty look, she can't help but notice. "Well, now we wait, I guess. And I'm hungry," he says. "You weren't planning to feed your kidnap victim, where you?"

She frowns and looks him up and down. Food, she has. She's just not ready to eat it yet. "You're not much of a kidnap victim," she says instead, still looking him over. He was definitely nicer to look at that any man in her sister's harem. Smells better, sweeter.

It might be interesting, being the one who takes instead of gives. She doesn't even really think it over, just puts one hand on his cheek to pull him in closer and kisses him. His mouth is soft and warm, lips parted in surprise. He tastes of something dry and a little bitter. He makes a sound, a low thin squeak she's never heard before and she wonders if that's a human thing.

When she breaks away he's panting like someone who's been running a race, eyes wide and summer blue with just a thin dot of pupil to break them. "W-what are you doing?" he stammers.

"Having fun," she says and puts her hands on her hips. "What's the matter, you're not afraid of fun, are you?"

He swallows and for a second she's almost sure he's going to say yes and she doesn't know what she'll do then. Instead his expression goes hard and he smiles wide. "Are you kidding?" he says. "I live for fun."

"Good," Gaila says and she reaches back out to run her fingers over the line of his jaw. He shivers and his eyes go wide again, the hardness in them slipping back into youth and confusion. "Let's see what your life's worth, human boy."

He laughs, voice cracking high again. "Seriously?" he says. "Wow, talk about high expectations."

For some reason, that makes her shake her head. She's fairly sure she's missing something, some human clue. He's not even looking at her, really. He's looking at a place right behind her forehead and it's disheartening, makes this whole... taking thing seem less fun than it had looked from the other end. She lowers her hand. "No, not seriously," she says. "Look... you're starting to confuse me. Do you want to share pleasure or not?" Share pleasure, she decides, it sounds better anyway.

Jim blinks at her. "I... uh. I--"

Something else she read in that book about humans comes to mind. They have odd taboos about youth, don't they? How young is he anyway? "You have shared pleasure before, yes?"

"I'm not a virgin if that's what you mean," he says. He's trembling a little, all pink and indignant. Maybe indignant-- she's not actually sure if he's annoyed or afraid.

"That's not what I asked," she says. She tries to think of a way to rephrase the question in a way that makes sense but he doesn't give her time.

"I know what you asked." Three point five seconds and then he's close enough to smell the breath in his lungs and he's got both hands on her face. She lets him steal the kiss. It's different this time, less tentative, more eager. He tastes sweeter.

She can't say quite how they end up on a blanket, spread over the cold titanium floor of the control room of her shuttle. She can't even say completely for certain that she's initiating him into pleasure, but she's fairly sure that, virgin or not, she is. He is very ardent and very sweet, but his hands are shaking and his teeth are chattering like the blanket does him no good at all.

She tries to warm him with her hands, stroking down the fine, curving arc of his spine, petting the thin, soft hairs on his lower back. There are scars scattered there and they get deeper as she goes lower, deeper still when she rubs her palm lightly over one of his ass cheeks.

He never stops shivering though, not even when she rolls over onto her side so they're facing each other and curls her hand around the bare length of his cock. It's narrow and pretty and pink as the rest of him, different from anything else she's ever seen. She likes it, she decides. She likes his face, flushed pink and gold, and his mouth, lips kissed red and parted.

"Ready?" she asks and he just swallows and nods, so she guides him inside of her with her hands. His cock feels so good the way she has him angled, the stretch of it is just right. He makes a low, wet sound and thrusts in and deep, once, twice and a third time and then she loses count. His mouth twists up. She kisses him to draw it loose and open again while he comes.

Jim just rolls over after, flat on his back and breathing sharply, in and out, mouth hanging open. Gaila pushes herself up on her elbow and grins down at him. He looks like someone smacked on the back of the head and he liked it. He just breathes for a thirty count and then grins back.

"Not so bad, huh?" she asks, and runs her finger down the line of his cheekbone. He sighs and wiggles, like he's stroking his cheek against her hand.

"Not at all," he says. "That was... I'll take it. Definitely." They just lay there for a while, smiling at each other. Until the ship's communicator chimes, dragging them out of it.

"Incoming message from Starfleet Headquarters, Commander Christopher Pike," the computer's voice says in pleasant sounding Orion.

Jim sits bolt upright and Gaila makes a mental note that the human understands Orion. Interesting. She doesn't say anything, just gets up and climbs over to the comm unit. "Voice only," she says, while grabbing for her shirt.

The voice on the other end of the line is low and pleasantly aggressive. "Unknown ship, this is Commander Pike. You should be aware that the Federation doesn't negotiate with terrorists or pirates. You are ordered to release your hostage and surrender immediately."

Jim's on his feet behind her, coming up close, a small frown twisting his face. Gaila shrugs in response and then opens the communications frequency. She'll have thirty seconds or less before Starfleet has enough information to track the ship's location based on the communications origin, so this has to be good.

"The human is alive and unharmed," she says. Jim grins at her and she can't help but grin back. "I don't guarantee he'll stay that way. Would the Federation really allow the son of one of their diplomats to be sold in a slave market?" She reaches out to trace a finger over the line of his collarbone, smooth and straight. His skin is still sex warm and she likes that."Unless I chose to keep him for myself, of course."

It's pure impulse but it makes Jim's smile.

There's a pause and crackle from the comm before the voice at the other end speaks again. The voice sounds tired and strange, but Gaila can never tell with humans anyway, not unless they're right in front of her. "How do we know he's alive? Put him on."

She meets Jim's eyes and Jim shrugs. Swallows and takes a breath. "Ten seconds," Gaila mouths. Ten seconds until they can be traced.

When he speaks, Jim's voice is high pitched and quavery, like he's been crying. His breathing comes a little too fast, it's perfect. "Do what she says, she--" he whispers into the comm and that's all he gets a chance to say before Gaila cuts the line dead.

Then she reaches out and pulls him closer, kissing him hard on the mouth. He smiles against her, the simulated fear melting away easily. "You really think this one is more likely to get the credits than your mother?"

Jim shrugs. "Yeah, sure. I told you, he has a hard on for my dad's legacy or whatever. He probably wants to fuck me too."

Gaila purses her lips but shrugs. "Humans are strange," she pronounces, satisfied with the judgment. "Let's eat now."

For some reason, that makes Jim laugh, but it's a nice sound, she likes it.

\  
They get other comms through the next hour, more official sounding stuffy ones, like she was expecting. Gaila moves the ship frequently, ducking through Sol's asteroid belt to confuse sensors.

Then she gets a comm message burst from that same Commander Pike and it's... different. Scarier, somehow. His image flickers on the screen, old and tired looking, the skin around his eyes and mouth too tight.

"It's a recording," Jim says, like that's not already super obvious. She shrugs and lets it play while Jim walks around the small room, pacing back and forth, eyes everywhere but on the screen.

The Commander isn't begging-- quite. But it's very clear from his tone and the set of his shoulders that he's hinting at concessions if Jim should be alive and returned home safely.

"He's afraid for you," Gaila finally says when the message is played through.

Jim shrugs and wanders back toward her, not quite touching but close enough to feel the warmth of him. "I don't know why," he says. "It's not like he ever did a thing for me when I was really in trouble."

That makes Gaila smile, mostly because he sounds so certain. "You're so sure you're not really in trouble now?"

Jim shakes his head and leans back a little so they brush against each other, skin to skin. There's a faint curve to his mouth and he says, "It doesn't matter if I am. This has still been fun and I wanna see who wants my ass back anyway."

"So then we negotiate with him?" Gaila asks, mostly just curious to hear what Jim will say. She already knows what the right thing is-- emotional types pay the most in ransom, it's practically a Syndicate guideline.

Jim nods quickly. "If he thinks I'm hurt, he'll move, his reputation will probably take a hit otherwise or whatever. How were you planning to collect the credits anyway?"

Gaila shrugs. "That was going to be the Syndicate's job, I just was supposed to bring you to the rendezvous point." For a second he looks like he's about to be disappointed. She lets it linger a moment more before she grins. "I have a numbered account that accepts transfers. No one knows about it but me and..." she stops. "No one alive but me knows about it. I'll collect the funds, leave you at a neutral drop point and go."

Jim makes a face. "You're _not_ leaving me," he says. She opens her mouth to say something about how no matter what he said, he's clearly of importance to people who will look for him, but he stops her with a sharp gesture. "No, listen, I'll think of something. I'm not going back there no matter what the deal is."

Gaila looks away. She doesn't tell him he has no idea what he's talking about, not really. Soft, silly human. She doesn't say anything at all, the next comm to come through is coded origin unknown and so tightly secured it can only have come from the Syndicate but she pretends she hasn't received it and filters through what they're getting from the Federation instead.

She bends her head down next to Jim, breathing in the scent of clean, young human mixed in with her own and listens to him talk, run through the plan. She pushes back until they hammer through something that will make sense, right up through who is going to transfer the money and where it will go. They don't talk about what happens to him afterward, not right away.

She waits until Jim is in the head to listen to the Syndicate's communication and ends up biting her lip, staring at the blank screen in front of her when the message is over.

She can still hear it in her brain, playing and rerunning the last words. "If you fuck this up, slave girl, you will never see starlight again." She sighs and punches in a message in return, fast and steady, only hesitating a moment before sending it. There are so few choices now and all of them are probably bad. Damn Jim Kirk for being... she doesn't even know. Himself.

Jim walks back into the room a minute later and gives her a smile that's almost shy. "Hey," he says. "Look, whatever happens, thanks for... well-- you know?"

She smiles back. "Come here, Jim," she says and he comes without hesitation. When she touches him there's none of the uncertainty and fear in his body like there'd been that first time. She could push him down against the console or onto the nest of blankets on the floor and he would go, trusting her with his body. She must have made it good for him, that he can feel that now.

Gaila kisses him on the forehead and remembers her sister and he looks at her with wide eyes. Then he smiles back, a cynical tilt to his brow and nods like she's answered a question he didn't ask. "Right," he says and brushes his hands together like he's shaking the dust off them. "Let's get you your credits, Dread Pirate Gaila."

"You are very strange," she tells him. "I wish that..." she stops and shakes her head. If wishes were credits they'd all own fast ships and all the space they needed to fly them in.

He smiles and slips one arm around her waist, just a quick, tight hug. "It's okay," he says. "Really. I promise." She wonders if he knows yet, what she's done to him, but his hands on her are still too gentle. He will soon enough.

 

It turns out getting the credits from the Federation is the easy part, the part she and Jim planned adequately for. It's only in the aftermath that everything goes wrong, at the drop point, carefully chosen, out of range of Sol, but not too far.

"They see me, alive and well," Jim says, and gestures broadly at himself. "They transfer the credits to you, you make it look like you're sending me off the ship in an escape pod, but the pod's empty. We hit it into warp before they get time to lock a transporter beam on anyone. Sound good?" She nods, like she's got faith and he smiles at her, sunny and sweet.

It all goes wrong right at the end game, when she gets the confirmation from her bankers that the credits have been received. That's when the Syndicate cruiser shows up, blocking her ship's escape lane into warp.

"Fuck," Jim hisses when they show up in sensor range. His face twists into a new expression, but that only lasts an instant. Then he looks at her and smiles again, his normal sweet smile. "Friends of yours, Dread Pirate Gaila?" he asks.

She sighs. She could lie here, pretend she has no idea where they've come from, that she never knew, but somehow the way he's looking at her she knows she won't. "I'd rather be a dread pirate than a slave," she says instead. What she should do now is what she should have done all along-- stun him with her phaser, cuff him and turn him over to the higher ups.

He even expects it, she's starting to be able to tell from the curve of his mouth and the burn of his eyes. Anger chasing resignation chasing expectation-- maybe he always thought she'd give him up. Anyone sane would have.

Instead she looks him in the eye and puts one of her phasers into his hand. "I can't keep them from getting onboard, I never could have," she says. "They have all the security codes to this ship-- I tried to break the ones I could but there's no way they can't beam on."

Jim's hands clench over the phaser, but the gesture is so awkward she wonders if he's ever held one before. Human children don't learn this young, she remembers that from her book. Maybe he's at least that much of a human child. The way he's staring from her to the phaser and back again, pale as Terra's sole moon, doesn't make him look any older.

"You--" he says.

"Trust me," she stops him. "If it looks like you're going to get taken, this button sets it on kill. Use it on yourself if you have to."

He looks like he's going to say something, to argue some point, but then he nods, like he really does know about fates worse than death. She hopes that fate's actually not going back home, not for him, because there's one last way she's betrayed him, one he can't know about, not yet.

Instead she arms her phaser carefully, so that he can watch and imitate her gestures. It's all either of them have time to do before there's a transporter whine, thin and high, centered in the middle of the room. She takes out one Syndicate man before he's fully materialized and shoves Jim back toward cover a fraction of a second before the survivors are returning fire. He screams something and she wonders if he was hit, but she doesn't have time to worry and he's still on his feet.

She tries not to know what it means that she's got way too much of his weight o her as they hurry back.  
There's a reinforced room in the back hall, one she's been using as quarters before she picked up Jim, even though ship's specs had suggested a weapons locker there, and they retreat that way.

"Thieving bitch!" Someone howls after her. "You're going to die! We're going to catch you and fuck you to death!" Jim winces next to her like the words hit him instead and she tries to smile.

"Are you okay?" she asks and he shrugs. Now that she stops to let herself smell it, there's the faint stink of phaser burned flesh and she doesn't have to look down to his blistered side to know that he's been hit. "Fuck," she mumbles. He doesn't really respond, just moans at her touch like getting into the room without screaming took all the strength he has.

The reinforced door outside rattles, shaken by a stronger blast than any weapon she has and Gaila thinks that if her back up plan doesn't go off, it's all over. She's going to wake up in a cage if she wakes up at all. Better not to wake up at all. She stares at Jim who's looking at her, blue eyes pain glazed.

"You're going to be okay," she tells him and kneels down taking one of his hands, the one not holding a phaser, in hers. He has such nice hands, she's enjoyed them so much already. "Helps's coming--" she doesn't have time to finish that sentence, to explain herself before she hears that transporter whine again. She sighs, breath she barely realized she'd been holding escaping so fast it leaves her light headed and floating.

The room is filled with grim-faced, armed people in Starfleet uniform. At the front is a pale human with winter blonde hair. She has on a diplomatic services uniform but she's holding the phaser like she's military and out for blood.

Jim staggers to his feet while he's still clutching Gaila's hand, staring at the human woman like she's all he sees. The woman is tall and thin with sharp angles and familiar, twisty expression on her face. Gaila knows who she is even before Jim whispers, "Mom," and slides back against the wall. "You're here. I-- you. Hi."

The woman stares at him right back, just for a moment and then strides over, looking from him to Gaila and back again. Finally, she puts her hand over the phaser still loosely clutched in Gaila's fingers. "You're the Gaila that commed me, I'd guess. I expected you to be older, I--" she says and then stops, like she's collecting herself. "So. I'm counting on you, kiddo. We don't have long before the ships's beaming you out of here, but in the meantime, if anyone comes near either of you that isn't wearing a Starfleet uniform-- kill it on sight."

"Yes, ma'am," Gaila's fingers close over the phaser and she nods tightly, staring at the human woman. The woman pauses, still hovering over Jim, one hand outstretched like she'd like to touch him but doesn't have the courage. "He's all right," Gaila adds softly. "It's a phaser burn but not deep, I don't think."

The woman nods and she the fleet personnel form up, phasers at the ready. It's all really a relief to have Gaila's reinforced door gives about thirty seconds after that and she sees the bright flare of phaser fire distorting her vision. Jim's breathing too hard into her shoulder and he's shaking but she can't do much for that but stroke his hair.

She doesn't know how long it is before she's caught in the stomach twisting bright light of the transporter beam, but the next thing she knows she's crouched on the cool, sterile floor of a federation ship transporter pad with Jim's barely conscious body clutched in her arms.

A man dressed in the gold uniform of a Starfleet Commander is next to a woman in medical blues. There's another group in the background, but from their stance she just figures them for security officers and those she's used to.

The man, she can see, is the Christopher Pike from the comms, the one Jim thought would help if he was kidnapped by pirates but not for whatever it was Jim was really afraid of. She figures he's probably here to arrest her, but she doesn't mind. Nothing the Federation does will be as bad as the Syndicate, not for her.

"If you really want to help him," she tells him straight out before he gets the chance to say anything about arrests. "You've been doing an awful job most of his life, but I bet your doctor can tell you that too if she takes a good look." She smiles at him, showing all her teeth.

He stops, but for barely a moment, really just long enough to take the phaser from her hands. The doctor doesn't even wait long enough for Gaila to be disarmed before she comes to take Jim away. The only part that surprises Gaila is that the doctor takes a minute to scan her too, like they're worried that she might be injured. Some kind of Federation weirdness, she figures, and doesn't think about it while the security people escort her-- that's what they call it here-- to the brig.

The brig is nice for a prison cell. It smells clean and the bed is soft. Gaila's a lot more tired than she realized so she just curls up and drops off to sleep like someone with nothing left to worry about. She doesn't know how long she sleeps, but when she wakes up she sees the brig forcefield flicker from out of half open eyes. She yawns and starts to get up, but she doesn't have a chance to, because a familiar smelling body slides under the covers next to her.

"Jim," she murmurs and rubs her eyes. He's warm and she finds herself curling close to him without thinking about it. "You 'kay?"

"Gaila," he whispers back. His arms feel good and tight around her shoulders and he smells okay, no more stench of phaser burned flesh. "Hey, I'm good, just thought I'd keep you company. Don't have to wake up, you need rest."

She nods and yawns and lets him stroke her hair for a moment before she even wonders what he's doing here. "Now what?"

His eyes are bloodshot and tired looking as she feels but he smiles at her, as sure as ever. "Don't worry about anything, I've got a plan." In the back of her head she thinks maybe that is cause for worry but he smells so nice and his shoulder is such a good pillow. She closes her eyes and drops off again without questioning why.


End file.
